Covid-19: Furlough scheme ends, and the grade inflation wind-back

Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday morning. We'll have another update for you this evening.

It was introduced during the first lockdown, it helped pay millions of wages after coronavirus restrictions meant large parts of the economy closed but now, after 18 months, the UK's furlough scheme is ending. Furlough - or the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme as it's officially known - was brought in by the government and has been praised for protecting millions of jobs. But some firms say they still need support because business hasn't returned to normal. The government says there's support in its Plan for Jobs.

Next summer's GCSE and A-level grades in England will be wound back to a "mid-point" between 2019 and 2021, as part of government plans to return them to pre-Covid levels over the next two years. It's been announced that exams will take place but with an option of teacher-assessed grades and pupils will get notice of exam topics in some subjects to help with revision.

GP appointments largely stopped taking place face-to-face due to coronavirus. The government wants them to return in England, they are and 57% of appointments were in person in July. But that's well below the 80% seen before the pandemic. We've spoken to a GP and patients to find out what they think.

"A happiness coach is someone that helps you to see how to look at things going on around you from a positive point of view," says Sadie Mills, who hired one during Covid. It's a trend that's been fuelled by the pandemic but what do happiness coaches do and does it work? We've investigated.

It makes sense of coronavirus data and has lots of followers but no-one knew who was behind the hit Australian tracking website, CovidBaseAU - until now. When teenagers Jack, Wesley and Darcy did the big reveal they got a "mind-blowing" response, including one person who tweeted: "Are you telling me that you three high school kids provide clearer info than the entire Department of Health? Damn..." Here's their story.

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What impact has the furlough scheme had? We've had a look.

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